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Schematic view of the different current systems which shape the Earth's magnetosphere. In many MHD systems most of the electric current is compressed into thin nearly-two-dimensional ribbons termed current sheets. [10] These can divide the fluid into magnetic domains, inside of which the currents are relatively weak.
In the height region between about 85 and 200 km altitude on Earth, the ionospheric plasma is electrically conducting. Atmospheric tidal winds due to differential solar heating or due to gravitational lunar forcing move the ionospheric plasma against the geomagnetic field lines thus generating electric fields and currents just like a dynamo coil moving against magnetic field lines.
A Birkeland current (also known as field-aligned current, FAC) is a set of electrical currents that flow along geomagnetic field lines connecting the Earth's magnetosphere to the Earth's high latitude ionosphere. In the Earth's magnetosphere, the currents are driven by the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and by bulk motions ...
The Earth and most of the planets in the Solar System, as well as the Sun and other stars, all generate magnetic fields through the motion of electrically conducting fluids. [54] The Earth's field originates in its core. This is a region of iron alloys extending to about 3400 km (the radius of the Earth is 6370 km).
Magnetospheric electric convection field. Electric field created by impact of solar wind onto the magnetosphere. The impact of the solar wind onto the magnetosphere generates an electric field within the inner magnetosphere (r < 10 a; with a the Earth's radius) - the convection field. [1] Its general direction is from dawn to dusk.
Magnetosphere particle motion. A sketch of Earth's magnetic field representing the source of Earth's magnetic field as a magnet The North Pole of Earth is near the top of the diagram, the South Pole near the bottom. Notice that the South Pole of that magnet is deep in Earth's interior below Earth's North Magnetic Pole.
The magnetosphere of Jupiter is the largest planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, extending up to 7,000,000 kilometers (4,300,000 mi) on the dayside and almost to the orbit of Saturn on the nightside. [17] Jupiter's magnetosphere is stronger than Earth's by an order of magnitude, and its magnetic moment is approximately 18,000 times ...
Heliophysics. The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others may be temporarily created.